About
About Mary Michael
Mary Michael Sellers began her career as a 9th and 10th grade English teacher in Gwinnett County, Georgia, with no formal education training — learning, as she puts it, on the job. One student, Bianca, who was visually impaired and required significant accommodations, became the north star she has carried through every role since: every chair counts.
From the classroom, Mary Michael moved into higher education, teaching at the University of North Georgia and Athens Technical College while earning her PhD in International and Comparative Education from the University of Georgia.
She then spent close to two decades in edtech leadership: at Stride, Inc. building new business strategy; at ACT, where as Vice President of Product Management she led product strategy across the company's core assessment suite, including ACT, PreACT, and WorkKeys, and guided its transition from paper to digital delivery; and at Learning Ally, where she led professional learning products focused on literacy, dyslexia, and visual impairment.
Today, Mary Michael is President & CEO of Scantron, a 50+ year old institution she is leading through a deliberate transformation into a modern, data-driven solutions company operating at the intersection of secure data capture, digital assessment, and AI-enabled services for schools, governments, and organizations where accuracy and trust are non-negotiable.
She leads with a simple philosophy: when people feel good, they do good work. She believes the best teams are built on psychological safety before they're built on performance metrics, and that transformation is earned through clarity and consistency — not announcements.
Outside the office, Mary Michael is a single mother of four children, based in Iowa City, Iowa. She speaks candidly about leading a company without a co-parent at home, and why she's come to believe in work-life integration rather than work-life balance — showing up as the same person in the boardroom, at the dinner table, and everywhere in between.
Note: Mary Michael's speaking engagements are booked independently and personally. They are separate from her role at Scantron and are not sponsored, endorsed, or arranged by the company.